


Clippings

by Emjen_Enla



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Antisemitism, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Dubious Self-Care, Fascism, Gen, Haircuts, Mixing Alcohol and Drugs, Pre-Episode: s05e01 Black Tuesday, Traumatic Brain Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23272222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjen_Enla/pseuds/Emjen_Enla
Summary: Ada gives Tommy a haircut. Heavy things are discussed.
Relationships: Ada Shelby & Karl Thorne, Ada Shelby & Tommy Shelby, Ada Shelby/Ben Younger, Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark, mentions of
Comments: 11
Kudos: 71





	Clippings

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was born out of a discussion on a Discord server about who cuts Tommy's hair. I said that before the end of s3 I thought it was Polly, and that afterwards it was Ada. This is a fic about that (though admittedly Lizzie also gets her chance at cutting Tommy's hair as well with the way this came out).
> 
> Please read the tags for the warnings.
> 
> Also, look, I finally managed to write a s5 fic!

It was four thirty in the afternoon and Ada was sitting in her living room with a glass of whiskey. Karl was in his room pouting, which only made Ada want to drink even more because it meant she hadn’t managed to impress on him why what had happened was wrong. The problem was that she didn’t know what else to say, never in all her years had she ever considered that she might have to explain to her and Freddie’s son that—

A knock at the door drew her out of her miserable thoughts. She threw back the rest of her whiskey rose to her feet. She knew exactly what was coming, and she was not looking forward to it. She would not back down, but that was different than saying she was looking forward to the confrontation.

Liquid courage imbibed, she straightened her dress and marched out into the hall. She paused for a second with her hand on the knob then threw the door open, words already on her lips. Then she stopped. “Oh, it’s you.”

Tommy frowned at her. “Who did you expect it to be?” he asked, a beat too slow. He was never slow like that sober, in fact he was rarely slow like that drunk, which meant laudanum. Ada studied him more closely. His pupils were a fairly normal size, and he didn’t seem quite as spaced out as she’d sometimes seen him. He was probably coming down from a high, which was relieving—she hated dealing with Tommy when he was high—but also very worrying. At first Tommy had only taken the laudanum for his migraines, and even when he’d started taking it more frequently he’d only taken it at night, maintaining that it helped him sleep. Since then he’d done away with that pretense and started taking the stuff during the day, which meant things truly were as bad as Ada feared.

“Ada?” Tommy repeated, aware of her scrutiny. “Who did you think it was going to be at the door?”

“No one,” Ada said, stepping back. “Come in.”

Tommy brushed past her into the house. “Hello, Karl,” he said.

Ada turned around and saw that he was looking up the steps to where Karl was standing looking down at them.

“Go back your room, Karl,” Ada said. “I didn’t tell you that you could come out.”

Karl glared at her and looked like he was going to talk back.

“Karl,” Tommy said, his tone warning. “Listen your mum.”

Karl’s shoulders slumped and he stalked back to his bedroom, slamming the door so loudly it shook the rest of the house.

Ada and Tommy stood together in the entryway for a moment before Tommy asked, “What was that about?”

Ada took a deep breath, but couldn’t find the words to explain. “Do you want tea?” she asked instead and headed for the sitting room. Tommy paused a moment and then followed.

The decanter of whiskey was still sitting on the coffee table where she’d left it. Tommy conjured a spare glass from the side board and poured a generous measure.

“When did you last have a dose of laudanum?” Ada asked, because she couldn’t just say nothing. “You shouldn’t be taking that stuff and drinking at the same time. It’s not safe.”

The look Tommy gave her was even more murderous than the one he’d given Karl. He downed the glass of whiskey.

Ada pursed her lips but went to go make tea. The worst thing about this whole situation was that when Tommy had first started filling his prescription for the laudanum she’d actually been glad. It really had just been for his migraines at first, and she’d been happy he’d been trying to do something more proactive than just pretending the pain didn’t exist and drinking when he couldn’t. Now she felt like the universe was punishing her for her optimism. She knew that didn’t make sense; Tommy drank a lot but he didn’t have the history with drugs that Arthur did. Given how steadfastly he’d avoided the rest of the family’s cocaine habit, she’d really had no reason to think he was susceptible to drugs. Still, she felt responsible for all of this.

“Why are you here, Tommy?” she asked, setting a cup of tea on the end table next to the chair he’d chosen. She gave him a small plate of biscuits too, hoping that they would entice him into eating something because lord knew when the last time he had was. She curled up in another chair with her own cup of tea.

Unfortunately, Tommy was more interested in that whiskey than the tea. He finished another glass before he answered her question, “I’d like you to cut my hair.”

Ada almost dropped her teacup. “ _What_?”

“I want you to cut my hair,” Tommy said. “I have a picture.”

“A picture…” Ada repeated.

“Of what I want it to look like,” Tommy gave her a look.

“I understand that,” she said. “I just question why you’re asking me. You can afford to go to a barber.”

Tommy’s lips thinned, but he didn’t explain, which left Ada to fill in the blanks.

When they’d been younger, Polly had cut all the Shelbys hair. She still did for Arthur and Finn, like that routine was a little hint of normalcy in their vastly changed lives. As far as Ada knew, Polly hadn’t cut Tommy’s hair since she and the others had gotten out of prison. Pol and Tommy might have mostly made up, but that was different than saying there wasn’t a definite tension to their relationship which hadn’t been there before. Ada had never really put any thought into who was cutting Tommy’s hair if Polly wasn’t. Maybe Lizzie was.

“Why didn’t you ask Lizzie?” she asked, taking a sip of her tea.

There was such a long pause that for a minute Ada thought Tommy wasn’t going to respond at all. “Lizzie’s not talking to me at the moment,” he finally admitted.

Ada wasn’t sure what to say to that. It wasn’t like the increasing tension in Tommy and Lizzie’s marriage was a secret. Their marriage had never been picturesque, but they’d been able to share space relatively friction-free until the last few months. It was worrying; Tommy and Lizzie had been a pretty good team when they were just an employer and an employee who occasionally fucked. They should have been able to take that level of collaboration into a marriage—even if it was a loveless one—but they hadn’t.

“When was the last time you went home, Tommy?” she asked.

“I’ve been busy,” Tommy said, which was both not an answer, but at the same time all the answer she needed.

She sighed. “Tom, avoiding this is not going to make it better.”

“I didn’t come here for your advice,” Tommy said coolly. “Are you going to cut my hair or not?”

“Fine, I’ll cut your hair,” Ada said. “Come up to the master bathroom.”

They climbed the front staircase and passed Karl’s bedroom on the way to Ada’s bedroom. Ada could practically taste the rage emanating from under his door, but it Tommy noticed he didn’t mention it.

“I didn’t bring a razor,” Tommy said after she closed the door to the master bathroom behind them. He sounded a little put out, like he was pissed that he’d forgotten.

“I’ve got one,” Ada said opening the cabinet where a small assortment of Ben’s toiletries had taken up residence. She pulled the straight razor out and turned back to Tom. He was eyeing her carefully.

“Why do you have that?” he asked.

“To cut my helpless brother’s hair,” she shot back. She had no idea if realizing she had a new lover would provoke the same reaction as it had when Tommy had figured out about Freddie all those years before and she wasn’t in the mood to find out, at least not until she figured out what she and Ben were to each other.

The look Tommy gave her was too sharp to think he’d let the topic drop. She gave him the same look back, and eventually he began removing his outer layers and laying them over the side of the tub without another comment. Ada knew that she hadn’t escaped entirely though; now he’d probably be snooping in her private business trying to figure out what was going on. She wondered if he’d managed to make friends with London’s telephone operators yet. If he had she’d probably have to tell Ben to stop calling the house.

By the time Ada had finished laying out the razor and a pair of, Tommy had stripped down to his undershirt and was watching her again. Stripped of his fancy suits it was obvious that he’d lost weight.

“You been eating, Tom?” she asked, trying not to sound worried.

“Are you going to cut my hair or not, Ada?” he asked instead of answering.

“That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?” she asked. “Where’s this picture you want me to copy?”

Tommy leaned over and fished a folded magazine clipping out of the pocket of his coat along with his cigarette case and lighter. He handed the paper over wordlessly and settled down on the toilet seat, watching her. Ada unfolded it and studied the image.

“Well?” Tommy asked. She got the feeling that he might have been waiting for her approval, but knew better than to mention it.

“It’s very severe,” Ada said, trying to figure out what the right thing to say was. “The sides are shaved all the way down to the skin.”

“It won’t need to be cut as often,” he said, like that was a concern for any of them anymore.

“And the front is pretty long,” she continued. “It’ll get in your eyes.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Is there a problem, Ada?”

“Just commenting,” Ada said. “If this is what you want, this what I’ll do.”

“That is what I want,” Tommy said and lit a cigarette.

Ada draped a towel around his shoulders and set the picture on the sink where she could easily see it. She studied both it and Tommy for a few minutes, planning. She didn’t actually have that much confidence in her haircutting abilities. Sure, she’d cut her, Freddie and Karl’s hair in those early years, but she hadn’t cut hair since she’d started working for Shelby Company Limited. This would be a bad time for her relative inexperience to cause problems.

“What are you waiting for?” Tommy asked after several minutes, evidently getting impatient.

“I’m making a plan of action so I don’t butcher you,” she shot back. “In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re an MP now. If you show up in Parliament looking like you lost a battle with a car engine people are going to talk.”

Tommy snorted. He stubbed out his cigarette on the countertop and left the butt sitting there while he lit another one. She really should have thought to bring an ashtray up with them, but she wasn’t in the habit of smoking in her bathroom so she hadn’t thought of it.

She stepped closer to him and ran her fingers along the side of his head. He immediately stiffened, and then made a visibly conscious effort to relax. He did a good job at hiding it, but Ada knew that ever since the injuries he’d sustained from Father Hughes, he didn’t like having his head touched. Lizzie had once mentioned that he wouldn’t even let her cup the back of his head when she kissed him. Now that Ada thought about it, that was probably why he was here instead of at a barber. He probably didn’t want to let some stranger touch his head.

With this in mind, she kept her fingers as gentle as possible as she ran them over the sides of his head. It didn’t take long to find the massive scar on the right side of his head from that injury. She ran her fingers along it, looking for the lowest point. She would have to make sure that stayed covered by his hair. Tommy’s reputation was shady enough without him showing up in Parliament with a massive scar clearly visible on the side of his head.

Ada did her best not to think about the night Tommy had shown up bloody and stumbling for the meeting he’d had her arrange with the Soviet Embassy. She’d seen him injured many times before, but that had been different. Normally when Tommy was hurt he expended a lot of energy pretending he wasn’t hurt. That night he hadn’t been able to hide anything. Seeing him obviously in pain and obviously struggling had been the worst thing that had ever happened to her, at least it had been until afterwards when he told her he couldn’t see and then lost consciousness.

The Soviets had helped her wrap him in a quilt off Karl’s bed to starve off shock and carry him to the car. She’d driven the whole way to the hospital with his head on the seat next to her leg, one hand on the steering wheel and the other in front of his mouth, because he was so still that was the only way she could tell he was still breathing. When she’d gotten to the hospital she’d stumbled inside and had been so beside herself she couldn’t remember the medical words he’d told her before he’d passed out. All she’d been able to do was sob, “My brother. Help him.” Thankfully the doctors had been able to figure it out from there.

There were still a lot of mysteries surrounding the exact circumstances under which Tommy’s head injury had happened. They didn’t even really know how many hours had passed between the initial injury and Ada running into the hospital in London begging for help. They knew he’d already been injured that morning when he’d staggered into Arrow House and fired all the former soldiers on the staff, but no one knew how long before that the injury had happened. No one knew why he’d been so worried about the soldiers either, and Tommy had never explained. Actually, he’d never answered any questions about those twenty-four hours. The doctors who had treated him in London had said he probably had pretty severe memory loss surrounding the incident, and Ada was inclined to believe them, though she knew Tommy would never admit to it.

Still, now was not the time to be thinking of such things, even if she still had nightmares about the whole thing. Now was the time for cutting hair. After a moment’s more planning, she picked up the razor and began to work.

They passed time in companionable silence for a while. Ada cut meditatively and Tommy smoked one cigarette after another, creating a small pile of them on the counter.

“You’re cleaning that up when we’re done,” she said after a while.

“Of course,” Tommy said and took another puff.

“So,” Tommy said when she’d switched from the razor to the scissors for the top. “Who did you think I was when you opened the front door read to go to battle?”

She almost refused to tell him, but the more she thought about it the more she found that she wanted to tell someone, and Tommy was probably the best option. “I thought you were one of Karl’s friends’ mums.”

Tommy frowned and sucked in another lungful of smoke. “Why would that cause you to answer the door that pissed off?”

She didn’t respond for a few minutes. She wanted to tell him, but it was hard to get the words out. She didn’t want to say them—it would make them real—but she had to.

“I stumbled across some of Karl’s friends tormenting a Jewish boy today,” she said.

Outwardly Tommy didn’t react, but Ada was touching him and she could feel him go as tense as he had when she’d first touched his head. His jaw clenched and his mouth barely opened when he lifted his cigarette to his lips again.

“Was Karl with them?” he asked after a stretching moment.

“He was around the corner buying sweets from a shop,” Ada said. “He claims he didn’t know about it.” She paused and forced the words out. “I don’t believe him.”

Tommy nodded meditatively, stubbed out his cigarette and lit a new one. Neither of them said anything for the entire time it took his to smoke that cigarette. Ada stood with the scissors in her hand, doing nothing.

“I’m worried about the kinds of things that school he’s going to are teaching him,” Ada said. “When he first started going there he’d come home and say things. I never let him get away with it. I always sat him down and explained why those things weren’t right, and eventually he stopped saying them. I thought he’d understood, but maybe he just learned not to say them around me.”

Tommy didn’t say anything, but she could tell he was thinking hard.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Ada went on, she forced herself to continue cutting his hair so she had something to do with her hands. “I knew that all the vile men in Parliament send their sons to that school. I knew that they probably wouldn’t if the school wasn’t saying things they liked. I should have seen this coming.”

Tommy lit another cigarette. He still didn’t say anything.

“Are you even listening to me?” she burst out. “This is important!” It was a stupid accusation. She knew he was listening. It wasn’t fair to get angry at him for not immediately knowing how to respond.

“I’ll start looking into another school to send him to,” Tommy said after another minute, without reacting to her outburst. “I don’t want to send Charlie to a place that’s spewing that kind of stuff either.”

“Is there a school that won’t have this problem?” Ada said. “We both know what Parliament is like these days, and this is a reflection of that.”

“If there is one, I’ll find it,” Tommy said. That wasn’t really an answer, but she believed that Tommy would do everything in his power to do exactly that.

“We could send Karl on the road for a while,” Tommy said after another minute. “Remind him where he came from. Might give him some perspective. Johnny Dogs and the Lees know how to get in contact with Esme. She still hates me, but she might take Karl in for a while as a favor for you.”

“If we take him out of school for an extended period of time, he’ll probably get expelled,” Ada said.

“Is that really a bad thing, knowing this?” Tommy asked.

“No,” Ada said. “But it won’t look good for your career.”

Tommy just took another pull from his cigarette. “Do you want me to ask Johnny Dogs to talk to Esme on your behalf?” He asked after a minute.

She thought for a moment, fiddling with the scissors. “Have Johnny Dogs ask,” she said. “I’ll make up my mind once we know what Esme says.” Privately she promised herself that she’d ask Ben to try to talk to Karl first. Maybe he would be able to get Karl to understand that just because most of the people he went to school with believed something didn’t necessarily mean it was true.

“Alright,” Tommy nodded slowly, then went still again as she went back to cutting his hair.

“Do you have plans for the rest of the week?” she asked after a long while. She was nearly finished with the haircut now and it seemed to have turned out, which was a relief.

“Johnny Dogs and I are taking a couple vardos out of the city on Tuesday. Lizzie and the kids might come along,” His tone was very flat.

“That sounds like fun,” Ada said, trying to sound optimistic. “Maybe you and Lizzie will be able to work some things out.”

“We’re going to put Dangerous down,” Tommy said.

Oh. That changed a lot. Dangerous’s health had been declining for months, and apparently Tommy, Charlie Strong and Curly’s excessive horse knowledge had finally been exhausted.

“You don’t have to go along,” she said. “Johnny Dogs is perfectly capable of doing what needs to be done himself. You don’t have to be there.”

“I’m going, Ada,” Tommy said in the kind of tone that booked no argument.

“At least let Johnny actually do it, then,” she pushed on. “Go on a walk with Lizzie and the kids while it happens. Don’t watch.” He took a breath and she felt him preparing to argue so she pushed on, “You hate watching horses die, Tom. I know you well enough to know that. And Dangerous is important to you. Don’t make this worse than it has to be.”

Tommy stubbed out his cigarette without responding. After a stretching moment he breathed in sharply. “Are you done?” He asked.

It was an extremely transparent change of subject, but she didn’t push. “Yes,” she stepped back. “What do you think?”

Tommy stood up and studied his reflection in the mirror. “Fine,” he said in a somewhat distracted tone of voice, his mind obviously already focused on a million other things. “Thank you.” He shucked off the towel and began to dress while Ada found the dustpan and began to clean up the hair clippings.

“You should stay for supper,” she said. “It would be nice to have some company besides Karl’s moping.”

“I need to get back to the office,” Tommy said, doing up the buttons on his waistcoat and reaching for his suitcoat. “I have calls to make.”

“Parliament business?” she asked.

“Some,” Tommy said. “And then I have to call Michael.”

His face tightened with displeasure at those words. Things had been getting more and more tense with Michael since he’d been sent to America during the Changretta vendetta. Ada wasn’t completely clear on the details, but she did know that he’d been making more and more extravagant purchases using Shelby Company Limited’s accounts. The last time Tommy had talked to Michael on the phone Ada had been in the room looking over his notes for a speech. Tommy had chain-smoked and downed glass after glass of whiskey throughout the whole conversation, his lips getting tighter and tighter and his tone getting colder and. When the conversation had been over, he’d slammed the phone back onto the receiver and immediately swept everything off his desk in a fit of rage. He’d refused to explain what Michael had said. Instead he’d stalked out of the office and returned twenty minutes later calmer but with his pupils pinpricks from laudanum. Watching her older brother give a speech in fucking Parliament while high off his ass was not an experience Ada ever wanted to have again.

“Can Michael at least wait until tomorrow?” she asked.

“No,” Tommy shrugged on his overcoat and turned to gather up his cigarette butts. “It needs to be tonight.”

“What’s so urgent?” she asked.

“I’ve been watching the American stock market,” he said without looking at her. “It doesn’t look good. I’m going to tell Michael to sell our stocks.”


End file.
